In this episode, BRAIND Founder Tomas Vucurevic sits down with Liz Bui, CEO of Yulex LLC, and Jeff Martin, Founder of Yulex, to discuss their game-changing approach to sustainability by creating high-performance, plant-based alternatives to synthetic materials like neoprene and elastane, while actively supporting smallholder farmers in Vietnam and Thailand. Liz and Jeff share their journey of building a transparent, ethical supply chain and how they’re helping world-known brands, such as Patagonia, Finisterre, and Decathlon, transition to more sustainable solutions.
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Themes and Timestamps
02:57 – Founding Story: The vision behind Yulex’s plant-based alternatives
04:48 – The Yulex Mission and Sustainability
06:19 – Sustainability in Action: On working with smallholder farmers and building ethical supply chains
10:47 – Ingredient Branding Journey: How Patagonia’s partnership helped establish Yulex as a leading brand
13:43 – Balancing Premium and Mass Market Brands: Collaborating with Patagonia, Decathlon, and Finisterre
18:00 – YULEX 2.0 Supply Chain Launch: Building a fully traceable, deforestation-free supply chain
21:43 – The Future of Sustainable Products: Introduction of elastane alternative, YULASTIC
23:41 – Ingredient Branding Challenge: The complexities of multi-Ingredient Branding collaborations
29:13 – Guest Recommendations
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BRAINDERY is the education and community platform of BRAIND®. It offers tools like the first Ingredient Branding MasterClass and the HeroInside podcast to support the Ingredient Branding community.
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About the Host
Tomas Vucurevic is the Founder and Managing Director of BRAIND® and one of the leading global experts in Ingredient Branding. Tomas has over 40,000 hours of experience as a global Ingredient Branding expert. Half of his career was as Global Brand Manager for Gore-Tex. The other half was as the Founder and Managing Director of BRAIND, a brand strategy consultancy focused exclusively on Ingredient Branding. He has guided more than 70 projects helping companies to get more value out of their innovations by transforming from the ZERO position as a supplier into the HERO position as an Ingredient Brand that consumers seek.